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45s.com -- Recording Artist Information: Chuck Berry
Date Born October 18, 1926 Location St, Louis, Missouri Music Rock and Roll singer, guitarist Charted Pop/Rock Hits 27 Period Active August 20, 1955 to 1972 Biggest Hits "My Ding-A-Ling," "Sweet Little Sixteen," "School Day," "Maybelline," and "Johnny B. Goode." Music List and Data Search Music List Notable Information Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. Acclaimed as one of Rock and Roll's most influential artists.
Other Names Charles Edward Anderson Berry Other Web Sites Blue Flame Cafe: Chuck Berry Chuck Berry was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. The following information was obtained from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:
While no individual can be said to have invented rock and roll, Chuck Berry comes the closest of any single figure to being the one who put all the essential pieces together. It was his particular genius to graft country & western guitar licks onto a rhythm & blues chassis in his very first single, "Maybellene." Combined with quick-witted, rapid-fire lyrics full of sly insinuations about cars and girls, Berry laid the groundwork for not only a rock and roll sound but a rock and roll stance. The song included a brief but scorching guitar solo built around his trademark double-string licks. Accompanied by long-time piano player Johnnie Johnson and members of the Chess Records house band, including Willie Dixon, Berry wrote and performed rock and roll for the ages. To this day, the cream of Berry's repertoire -- which includes "Johnny B. Goode," "Sweet Little Sixteen," "Rock and Roll Music" and "Roll Over Beethoven" -- is required listening for any serious rock fan and required learning for any serious rock musician.
Charles Edward Berry was born in St. Louis on October 18, 1926. In the early Fifties, Berry led a popular blues trio by night and worked as a beautician by day. He befriended Muddy Waters, who thought highly enough of Berry's ability to introduce him to Leonard Chess, head of Chicago-based Chess Records. It was not his bluesy numbers that convinced Chess to sign Berry but a song on his audition tape called "Ida Red," an uptempo, R&B-country hybrid that Berry later reworked into "Maybellene." Released on August 20, 1955, "Maybellene" went to Number 5 in Billboard and established Berry as a rarity: a black artist who successfully crossed over to the largely white pop charts. Asked why he made the transition when so many other deserving black artists in the Fifties had been locked out, Berry replied: "I think it had a lot to do with my diction. The pop fan could understand what I was saying better than many other singers." It also had a lot to do with his knack for language. Berry offered eloquent testimony to the experience of being a teenager in the changing world of the Fifties, whether he was describing the boredom of classroom-bound students in "School Days" ("Soon as three o'clock rolls around/You finally lay your burden down") or the liberating appeal of rock and roll itself in "Rock and Roll Music" ("It's got a backbeat, you can't lose it"). In his words, "Everything I wrote about wasn't about me, but about the people listening."
Berry gave rock and roll an archetypal character in "Johnny B. Goode" and was responsible for one of its most recognizable stage moves, his "duckwalk." All the while, his repertoire -- not only the hits, but lesser-known songs like "Little Queenie" and "Let It Rock" -- were being mastered by eager apprentices on the other side of the ocean, such as Keith Richards and John Lennon. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones and many other British Invasion acts covered Chuck Berry at a time when the master himself was serving two years in prison on what now appear to be trumped-up charges. Released in 1964, Berry proved he still had some rock and roll classics left in him ("No Particular Place to Go," "You Never Can Tell," "Promised Land"). All the while, even groups like the Beach Boys plundered Berry for inspiration. Their 1963 hit "Surfin' U.S.A." so blatantly appropriated the melody and rhythm of Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen" that he sued and won a songwriting credit. Ironically, this venerable rock and roll pioneer achieved his one and only Number 1 hit, "My Ding-a-Ling" -- a risque novelty song he'd long been performing in adult nightclub settings -- in 1972. By this time, his music had grown so entrenched that he didn't even tour with a band, preferring to recruit pickup musicians in each new town. In those days, if you knew how to play rock and roll, it was a given that you'd cut your teeth on the songs of Chuck Berry.
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